Figured walnut shaker step stool

So a couple months ago I needed to make a step stool for my son. It needed to be big enough for him to reach the kitchen sink.

I searched around on the internets and found the design that Tommy Mac aka T-Chisel aka the new host of the Roughcut show on PBS. He had done a “forum build” a couple years ago with a bunch of people making the step stool. He had a few podcasts about it that I did watch.

I had also been given a gift certificate to a local lumber store for my birthday. I splurged on an expensive (>$100) figured walnut board.

So I broke out my dovetail saw and chisels and went to work.

I started with a wash coat of shellac. Then a little bit of danish oil. Then a few more coats of shellac, then topped off with a bunch of sprayed on coats of water based lacquer. A little paste wax topper and she was ready for pictures.

Yeah . . . the finishes. I was going to try to fill the grain a little with the shellac. So the first few coats of that were sanded down pretty good. Then the danish oil was to get a little oil in there. The danish oil alone didn’t quite have the look I was going for, so I did a couple coats of shellac again because I knew I was going to go water based on top of that. I never really did fully fill the grain. If I did it again, I would probably use a grain filler, some sort of oil and go right to the top coat. One of these days I’m going to build up a finish and rub it out, but I’m just not patient enough yet.

gotcha. I can imagine myself doing the same thing. Actually, while I don’t ever really want to go for a full piano-like finish, I have gotten as close as I really care to get using poly. 1 coat of straight gloss poly put on there without too much care for dust nibs etc, then sanded back with ~500 grit paper does a really fine job. Using another coat or two of diluted “wiping” poly has gotten me pretty smooth finishes – actually smoother than I’d intended.

I’ve never tried shellac, but I was under the impression that it was kind of the perfect grain filler, since it dries so quickly. hmm.